Hiho!

Now this should interest you! You want to read all of it! Something absolutely unique in the history of finer arts and you do not even have to like books or even poems to love this. I write about the most bewildering career ever made in literature and for me about the greatest female German poet ever.

Yesterday 103 years ago (I have been not fast enough to start this sentence with "today") Friederike Kempner died. She is exactly that Friederike Kempner I mention as my favorite poet in my DA profile. She has been very famous in her time but today scarcely anybody knows her.

She was born in 1828 (she called it 1836 ) in Reichthal, then Preussen, today Rychtal, Poland. Her parents owned a little manor ("Rittergut" = "knight's property") where she lived all her life. Never married she soon discovered her talent and love for poetry at the age of about 40.

She wrote a lot of wonderful poems and then went to find a publisher, but nobody was willing to publish her book. The market was not ready for the profound thought of a middle aged spinster. Instead of giving up she decided to be her own agent, publisher and bookseller. Her tiny book sold not too well. That was in 1873 and when the story slowly began.

Because one day one of the authors of a well known literature magazine discovered her. Instead of putting the "rubbish" away he read more careful and found in Friederike's poetry something so far nobody had noticed. The poems were often quite funny, obviously without the poets intention. He wrote an article praising the book, Friederike and her "involuntary humor", recommending the book, putting it in the set books. When the issue of the magazine, called "Gegenwart" ("present tense"), came out sales improved. No, they did not improve, they exploded.

All Germany, intelligentsia and not so intelligentsia loved her poems, got in highest spirits reciting them and rolling to laugh their ass off. Friederike got lots of fan mail encouraging her to go on, praising her, calling her "die Schlesische Nachtigall" (the Silesian nightingale) and even "der Schlesische Schwan" (the Silesian swan). And that is the nick she got famous under.

Even though I don't intend to write about her poetry I simply cannot avoid giving an example of her fine art (with translation):

Kepler

Du sahest herrliche Gesichte
In finstrer Nacht,
Ein ganzes Blatt der Weltgeschichte:
Du hast es vollgemacht!

Kepler

You saw superb visages
In dark night,
A whole page of world history:
you have filled it.

Well, not so bad, only that the verb "vollmachen" in the last verse is most often used not in the sense of "to fill" but in a sense of "to soil" (as in "to soil one's diaper/nappy") or drool (on something for example on a clean tablecloth). In a poem you would expect that poor Johannes Kepler would perhaps have written a whole page of something or enriched or ennobled it with his deeds ..., but no: Friederike without even noticing manages it with a single word to turn the famous astronomer, mathematician and theologian into a drooling idiot spreading his fluids all over a page in the dignified book of world history.

But Friederike was no one trick pony; even in this short poem we meet one other of her uncountable stylistic devices: Johannes Kepler, a genius who at this moment is dealt with in more that 50 different languages in the Wikipedia, is good for four (in numbers: 4) verses. Her father's study got 20 verses, her parrot Jakob was worth several poems with a total of more than 40 verses - though that was later, when the bird was late (he died on the 15th of November 1890) - or just pining for the fjords. And if you look closely at the above poem, there is even room enough for a third stylistic trick, one very commonly used in her lyric. Nobody would know what the whole poem is about without the title. And that title is often in sharp contrast to what you would expect or think of if it was omitted.

Other stylistic devices of her repertoire were to create new words or connections of words, to use poetic forms of words where they were both wrong and unnecessary, to stick to strange topics, to use images and change them amidst the poem, to cultivate her mental leaps ...

Now you can perhaps imagine why all Germany was pleased with Friederike, "Genius of the involuntary humor". People had lots of laughs and good entertainment. All Germany? All Germany! With the little exception of Friederike's family. They were not amused.

Belonging to the just recently well accepted minority of German Jews they did fear nothing more than being ridiculous. They had not survived some hundred years of discrimination and persecution, ghettos and pogroms, bans from professions ... had not fought for their bare life and elemental rights, had not fought for Germany in the war 1870/71 against France, had not painfully established themselves as emancipated Germans ..., they had not gone through all that pain and trouble just to find themselves to be loudly laughed at because one of them wrote funny poems.

Thus they took action: they secretly went into the book stores and bought what they could find. Isn't that Rock'n'Roll? Soon Friederike's book was sold out and the story ended.

Did it end? To stay in the image: Elvis is dead, but the story actually kind of begins here.

Think about it: why should it have ended? No way! Friederike was overwhelmed by the sales and the many letters from her frenetic fans. Often she did not notice the irony or it could not harm her. She could not let down all her dear readers, could she?

Moreover things got sooo much easier now. The publishers quickly learned their business. They were only too delighted to take care of a second and enhanced edition of her poems. For what the eager readers did not buy immediately the still optimistic family would buy. A race started that was only ended when the Swan died in 1904. Eight editions of the poems had been published, each enhanced and soon sold out in practically no time. Ask her family about the 16th nervous breakdown!

But now they had the rights, could prevent further editions, could fight in court against pirated prints and could piously bury poor aunt Friederike. The Swan lies on the old Jewish cemetery in Wroclaw (Breslau, Vratislav, Wratislavia, Vratislavia). Some pictures of that cemetery can hopefully still be found in ~Rodonnil's and ~Maniaiel's galleries.

Now ask the family about the 17th, 18th and 19th nervous breakdown when decades after aunt Friederike's death there were still tons of her books and pirated copies all around the libraries in Germany. In his book "Friederike Kempner, der schlesische Schwan" Gerhart Mostar mentions that even in 1938 he had to spent 80 Reichmarks for a 6th edition of her poems, more that the collected works of Goethe would have cost. And he was happy about this investment.

[And I am most delighted to have bought a 6th and a 7th edition. The 6th made a wonderful birthday present and the 7th is one of my absolute favorite books...]

Having now told lots of the legendary and funny stuff, not mentioning Friederike's social concerns, her huge commitment and almost nothing about her poems, you can most likely not imagine why this woman is my favourite poet.

Those capable of German might have a look at the Gutenberg.de link below, where a 8th edition can be found. Even better: get the Mostar book from an second hand bookshop or try top find Percy Eichbaum's "An der Tugend nur genipped". Or offer me dimensions more money than is sane for my 7th edition.

For all others two more of her poems with an translation:

Poesie ist Leben,
Prosa ist der Tod,
Engelein umschweben
Unser taeglich Brot.

Poetry is life
Prose is death
Angels fly around
Our daily bread



O Gott, Du weisst am besten, was uns frommt
Und gut ist alles, was von Deiner Guete kommt,
Allein die Menschen sind so schwach:
Sieh' ihnen lieber alles nach!

Oh God, you knoweth best of all, how we should live
And good is everything, that cometh from your goodness
But the humans are so weak:
Better forgive them everything!



For the Germermans or German speaking only:

Leipziger Lerchen

Die lieblichen Saenger des Feldes
Ach, nackt und zum Frasse bereit,
Ihr werdet doch Lerchen nicht essen?
Mein Gott, ihr waer't nicht gescheit!

Die Lerche, die wahre Poetin,
Zum Himmel sich schwingend hinauf,
Ihr Nestlein ach sorglos am Boden,
Die Senner, sie treten darauf.

Allein der Bauer vom Lande,
Er hat ein natürliches Herz, –
Mit Schonung schwingt er die Sense,
Die Sense von Stahl und Erz.

In Leipzig aber da schlachten
Die singenden Kehlchen sie,
– Ach, nackt und zart zum Erbarmen –
Ein Schlachten der Poesie!



Anmerkung: [link]

Links:

Wikipedia.de Eintrag
Friederike Kempner bei Projekt Gutenberg de
Thematisch gut sortierter Schlesischer Schwan in "Hutschis Netzgewebe"

Have a nice day, Joerg
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_{My galleries:
graveyards and parks |||| industrial |||| nature |||| wallpapers}